American political campaigns are notoriously substance-free and filled with venomous disinformation about the opposition candidates. Political ads can say anything they want, regardless of whether it’s misleading or false.

It’s so bad that I wonder why anyone bothers to vote. Can you imagine if airlines advertised the way politicians do?

“Air Nebraska says they are a low-price airline. But did you know their planes don’t fly all the way to their destinations? Say you’re flying from Omaha to Cincinnati. Air Nebraska drops you off in Indianapolis and puts you on a rickety 1955 Scenicruiser for the rest of the trip. Air Nebraska? Never. Paid for by Air Big Texas, which approves this message because you deserve to fly the Yellow Rose of air travel.”

Stung, Air Nebraska hits back its own attack ad:

“You’ve seen the scandalous ad about Air Nebraska that our competitor is running. But did you know Air Big Texas’ jets routinely fail FAA inspections? Some are held together by duct tape and chicken wire. Don’t want to fall out of the sky? Ground the wilted rose. Fly Air Nebraska, which paid for and approves this message.”

Those ads would scare you back to your car, a bus or train. You’d never fly again.

And that is the point of negative political advertising, to depress turnout among your opponent’s voters, independents and the not-very-motivated voters, while ensuring that your most committed voters come to the polls.

It works — that’s why they keep doing it.

This year, in the Illinois governor’s race, both candidates are playing this tired old game. It tells us nothing about how they’d solve the serious problems facing our state, which has a $100 billion public pension liability, is still months behind paying its bills and suffers from what business groups say is a poor business climate. A decision must be made soon about whether to let the 5 percent personal income tax rate revert to 3.75 percent at the end of the year, requiring major budget cuts, or keep the tax at 5 percent temporarily or permanently.

Pension reform was passed and signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn, but it’s being challenged by public sector unions at the state Supreme Court. There’s widespread speculation that the justices will rule the law unconstitutional, bringing us back to the starting line.

So, the next governor, whether it is to be Quinn or Rauner, has a very big task ahead. But the campaign isn’t telling us much about that. Here are some things I’d like to know, and that we all need to know:

Page 2 of 2 - Rauner says different things to different audiences. He told a downstate Republican group he might have to shut down state government for awhile. What? How would that work? Would he stop paying pensioners? Close the prisons? Send the State Police home? Close the schools?

At one time, Rauner said he wanted to reduce the minimum wage a dollar. He backed off that and now says he could back an increase in the minimum wage coupled with workers’ compensation reform and tort reform.

Rauner wanted to roll the 5 percent income tax back to 3 percent. But his plan now is to reduce the tax rate to 3 percent gradually over four years, by restructuring the government to make it more efficient.

Rauner also wants to raise taxes by slapping a state sales taxes on business services not currently taxed by the state.

Rauner also talks about freezing property taxes, which would have huge impacts on the state’s 7,000 local governments. Illinois relies on property taxes to fund local governments far more than many states.

We don’t know how either candidate would deal with the pension liability problem should the state Supreme Court rule the reform law unconstitutional.

We also need to hear from Rauner about why he invested money in the Cayman Islands, and much more about patient care problems at the nursing home company owned by GTCR, the Chicago private equity firm in which Rauner was a partner.

With Quinn, we know the 5 percent tax will continue. We know that he’d try to pass a “millionaires and billionaires” tax increase so that those people “pay their fair share,” as he puts it.

We’re pretty sure Quinn is not planning to reduce any taxes, although he did want to give homeowners a $500 check in return for taking away the state mortgage interest deduction from income taxes. The Legislature did not pass it.